


The Party

by Maria_Laney



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Era, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28754598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maria_Laney/pseuds/Maria_Laney
Summary: Jack and Katherine prepare to attend a VIP [Very Important Party, surely] and Jack is less than thrilled about it.
Relationships: Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	The Party

Jack straightened his tie in the mirror, tilting up his chin to make sure it looked okay. He wasn’t sure it did, he had never worn ties much before he fell in with Katherine and started being required to. Whenever they went anywhere, at least, to places full of the sort of people he would have to see tonight. Bustling socialites and old white men in tophats and crisp suits who will indefinitely look down on him. Ancient fellows who knew Joseph Pulitzer personally, and disapproved of his new son-in-law, displeased with the judgement of Pulitzer’s eldest living daughter and the fact her father had approved their engagement at all.

He fidgeted with the ring on his finger, trying to swallow back the lump in his throat. He’d never feared old men in tophats and expensive haircuts until their opinions started mattering. It wasn’t only his reputation that was forever on the line whenever he stepped out of their house, it was Katherine’s, and all of the Pulitzers’, for accepting him, or at very least tolerating him and having him under their roof for Christmas and things. He hadn’t feared them until now. It was a dull kind of apprehension, one he never expressed aloud. He wasn’t ungrateful, just certain he would spend their kindness before he was due to repay it in success.

He flinched when he felt Katherine’s arms slip around his middle, thumbing the fabric of dumb button pockets that had absolutely no use besides looking pretty on a waistcoat. She leaned her head on the back of his shoulder. She was warm, and looked so pretty it made him dizzy. He never failed to be floored by the way she dressed up for events like this, with a corset and gloves and everything, putting her hair up elaborately under the sort of hat he used to revere on women, because that pegged them as the stuck-up snobbish type. Katherine wasn’t stuck-up or snobbish towards anyone, least of all him, especially not while they were getting ready for things like this.

“You look beautiful,” he said, instead of complaining about his own attire.

“So do you,” she returned fondly, and he covered her gloved hands with his. Hers were small and soft and he was glad he’d never have to tell anyone else why his own hands were so rough. “Henna helped me with my hair. Do you like it?”

Henna was their maid of sorts, but Katherine just called her Henna. She didn’t like the idea of maids, never had, at least until she met Jack. Henna was nice and an older woman, she knew a lot about a lot that Jack couldn’t even begin to understand. When he couldn’t relate to Katherine the right way, that was where Henna stepped in.

“Yeah.” Nevermind his own hair. She said it was fine the way it was, just run a comb through it for once.

“Don’t be nervous,” she told him, standing on her toe-tips so she could rest her chin on his shoulder, looking at the both of them in the mirror. Her dress was big and puffy behind his legs, and a collar topped with lace that went all the way up her neck. Modesty was a staple of the new 20th century.

“I ain’t,” he lied. “I’m not.”

“Liar,” she noticed. “I can feel your heart pounding. If your hand is shaking when you pick up a glass of champagne, nobody will take you seriously.”

The reassurance wasn’t very helpful, because Katherine was joking. She nudged him gently, looking their reflections over. She reached around his chest to straighten his tie.

“I know you don’t like things like this. I don’t either. Loathe them, actually. But I think, ‘this could really help Jack establish himself as an artist,’ and accept the invitations anyway. The world is in need of brilliant minds to distribute their brilliance, that’s where you come in.”

“I don’t feel brilliant,” Jack said. He’d been more quiet these days, and Katherine hated it. She’d brawl with anybody who even looked at him the wrong way, offered too harsh of a critique. Of course she hadn’t gotten the chance to grace anybody with her fists just yet, but she was perched, eager.

“Are you kidding me? You’re the most thoughtful person I know. You are inspiration personified. _Glass Faces_? The best thing you’ve made yet. Everybody’s going to be talking about your work tonight, Mr. Luminist. They’ve decorated the hall with it, that’s how much they adore it. Gold plates and everything. Even the parlor.”

Jack scrunched up his face, picturing _Glass Faces_ in his head. Two teenagers walking the side of a railroad together with mangled brushstrokes for faces seemed like a good idea when he was making it. They weren’t exactly defined, or meaningful, just that he was thinking about New Mexico at the time, and how he’d been careened into this life with Katherine so suddenly, he felt empty when he surveyed his ranch in his dreams. His body was there, but his mind was still in bed beside her. Nobody ever had faces in his dreams, though. He tried drawing imaginary cowboys he’d meet on the range, but none of them ever manifested into his subconscious like he’d been planning.

“I don’t like namin’ ‘em,” Jack told her.

“I know you don’t. Words can’t describe your work in a way that makes sense, the real audience feels the impact in a glance.” She kissed his cheek. “We have to leave soon.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, and Katherine left to grab her coat by the door.

“Just you wait and see, Jack. Everybody’s going to love you.”


End file.
